"I think privacy's important — but we're in an age where you're balancing off against safety," Mr Howie said.

He believes it's a different standard when it comes to having facial recognition information used by marketers and advertisers.

"Maybe that information is provided to marketers and advertisers who want to use that similar to what the ABS does — it collects individual data, holds that private, distributes data on age and gender," he said.

"I'm not of a view that you should really hold that information if it's not needed and the places it's needed from a security point of view.

"The rest needs the right privacy around it."

There's no suggestion that driver's licence photographs would be shared outside of Government, but with the information already publicly available from social media it's not hard to imagine how someone could suck up all of that information and sell it.